What's Happening

By Sister Nancyann Turner, OP

August 27, 2025, Detroit – Current and former students and volunteers, families, friars, and staff members gathered on August 16, 2025, for a spirited celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Rosa Parks Children and Youth Program of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit. They also honored Sister Nancyann Turner, OP, who created the program and directed it for more than 20 years. 

Michelle Anderson, Director of the Rosa Parks Children and Youth Program, and Brother Gary Wegner, OSF Cap., who directs all aspects of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, welcomed the participants and offered remarks.

The Rosa Parks Children and Youth Program, open from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays, offers young people creative alternatives to violence through after-school tutoring, art therapy for children ages 6 to 15, a large lending library, seasonal family activities such as baking Christmas cookies, a youth leadership program for teenagers, and a three-week summer peace camp.

Sister Nancyann reviewed the history and the various groups responsible for building and sustaining the multifaceted program for Detroit’s east side children and teens. She mentioned how much she had been changed and nurtured during her 23 years with the program.

“My prayer, my spirituality, and my sense of mission have been so inspired, stretched, nurtured, and blessed by my relationships with the many families, staff, and volunteers with whom I journeyed,” Sister Nancyann said. “I learned to lament. I learned to bless. I learned to accompany. I learned to give thanks for joy. My family became your family, your family became mine, and your presence in my life is still very sacred.”

Sister Nancyann concluded her remarks with a plea to keep children and youth as a top priority. “What our children think, what they create, what they feel, and what they love will create the future for generations to come,” she said. “Our children need villages; our children need to flourish, not just exist or survive.” She reminded those assembled, “Forever, you are part of this beloved community.”

The evening continued with dinner. The children of the Rosa Parks Peace Garden concluded the evening with a blessing and the presentation of a huge bouquet to Sister Nancyann.

Sister Suzanne Schreiber, OP, a long-time volunteer with the children’s program, accompanied Sister Nancyann at the event. Other Adrian Dominican Sisters who volunteered for tutoring or art at the Rosa Parks program included Sisters Katherine Frazier, OP, Mary Lou Putrow, OP, and Kathleen Voss, OP, and the late Sisters Pauline Oplinger, OP, Marie Solanus Reilly, OP, and Kathleen “Kay” Watt, OP. Numerous Mission Groups of Sisters and Associates made contributions and offered support throughout the years. 

Sister Suzanne said that the celebration was “a real testimony to community building” and to Sister Nancyann’s efforts through the years to save lives. “I was so happy to be there and to witness the love and care that Beloved Community has for [her]” and to see the familiar faces of volunteers, former students, and mothers, she said. 
 

Caption for above feature photo: Friends and participants of the Rosa Parks Children and Youth Program gather for its 25th anniversary celebration. 
Photo by Tim Hinkle, Capuchin Development Office, used with permission

July 9, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – The Adrian Dominican Sisters and other congregations of women religious in Michigan and Indiana have launched a billboard campaign to share the Gospel message of love and care for others.

In Lenawee County, five billboards placed by the Adrian Dominican Sisters simply read, “Love is kind. – 1 Corinthians 13:4.” This message aligns with the Adrian Dominican Congregation’s commitment to help build the beloved community in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, hunger, and hate. 

The Congregation issued a public statement on April 7, 2025, urging all people to help build a beloved community among the American people in the face of the many dehumanizing executive actions and decisions of the Trump Administration. In the statement, the Adrian Dominican leadership prayed that “the goodwill characteristic of the American people of all faith traditions will call us to kinder, more compassionate, respectful, and generous ways of being good, caring neighbors to one another – and to all the other beautifully diverse peoples of the world’s nations, neighbors in our common Earth home.”

The billboards are located at U.S. 12 and Miller Road, U.S. 12 and Matthews Highway, M-50 and Matthews Highway, U.S. 223 and Sandy Beach Road, and U.S. 223 and Humphrey Highway.

Five other congregations are placing billboards with messages urging care and concern for people and planet, displayed in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, Michigan, and South Bend, Mishawaka, and Plymouth, Indiana. Participating congregations are Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters and Sisters of St. Joseph in Michigan and Sisters of the Holy Cross, Poor Handmaids, and Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in Indiana.

The leaders of the congregations collaborating on the billboard initiative are members of the regional coalition of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). The association of more than 1,260 leaders of Catholic women’s religious congregations serves to further the mission of the Gospel by serving as a corporate voice for the most vulnerable and by promoting dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations and society. To that end, LCWR released “A Response from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to These Times” in January 2025.